Opec's glory days as an effective cartel are well and truly over

EXPECTATIONS were running high prior to the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) held in Doha over the weekend. In the run-up to the gathering, oil prices had climbed from a 12-year low of under US$30 a barrel in January to around US$45 a barrel last week.

This was in anticipation that a long-elusive deal among the cartel's members to freeze oil production was finall…